Well, your average yahoo considers "live music" to be a very loud and electronically massaged performance by the Biebs or maybe an overdriven ear splitting Metallica concert that leaves your ears ringing for days (I used to be one of those...heh). Of the single digit percentage that have seen live chamber music or live jazz and can appreciate the subtleties therein, you've then got to weed out those folks who don't care or don't have the spare jingle to throw a couple of grand at the problem. That leaves a vanishingly small universe of consumers for niche "audiophile" companies to chase. While my kids think my audio systems have been "cool," they can't be bothered and seem quite content to listen to highly compressed music streamed from Youtube into a tiny pair of earbuds.

It won't be long before the actual hardware is commoditized even further and the differentiation offered by niche audiophile companies will be comprised almost entirely of software.